This invention relates generally to breathing masks and hydration packs and, more particularly, to a hydration respiration apparatus that enables a laborer (such as a commercial painter) wearing a respiration mask to maintain suitable personal hydration without having to stop working or remove the respiration equipment.
Workers who breathe an excessive amount of dust, fumes, smoke, gases, vapors, or mists may be at risk for work-related lung disease. Specifically, painters face health risks caused by the overspray from spray painting. This is especially true for commercial painters and auto-body painters. For instance, car paint contains isocyanates which are particularly unhealthy to breathe. Similarly, commercial painters may spray paint for hours or days in a large warehouse or factory having very little or simply inadequate ventilation.
As a result, painters often wear a respirator having filters designed to collect or block the contaminants from paint overspray. When painting for hours on end, the painter often needs to stop painting in order to drink water and hydrate himself, especially when painting inside of a hot building, such as factory, industrial plant, or new construction that does not have a controlled temperature.
Various devices and patent proposals are known in the prior art for respiration masks that make it easier for a worker to have food or beverages in close proximity. Although presumably effective for their intended purposes, the existing devices do not enable a worker to quickly and easily receive a drink of water without first having to remove the respirator mask and, as a result, stop working for an undesirably long period of time.
Therefore, it would be desirable to have a hydration respiration apparatus having a respirator assembly for blocking or collecting impurities in the area from being inhaled by a user and having a hydration assembly that channels water to a user's mouth for hydration. Further, it would be desirable to have a hydration respiration apparatus having a mask with filters that is wearable by a worker and a hydration reservoir wearable on the back of the user that delivers water to an insertion tube in the mask in selective fluid communication to a user's mouth. In addition, it would be desirable to have a hydration respiration apparatus in which the insertion tube is selectively movable between a retracted configuration displaced from a wearer's mouth and a deployed configuration proximate a wearer's mouth such that a user obtains a drink by biting the tip of the insertion tube.